The Promise Keeper

By L .Marie Wood

In the shadows of ancient Benin, a demonic presence stalks an innocent girl on the cusp of womanhood. Seduced by this sinister stranger's fatal charm, the girl's soul descends into eternal damnation as she becomes one of the undead - a vampire slave to the merciless Promise Keeper.

For centuries across continents, the Promise Keeper haunts his victim's every move, invading her mind with violent commands in an unholy pact sealed in blood. Just as she dares hope his reach cannot extend to the glamour of New York City, an ill-fated romance once again shackles the reluctant asiman to her merciless master's bidding.

Now the Promise Keeper's web of deceit and murder ensnares fresh prey as he compels his undead servant to act against her very nature. In the end, not even true love may be enough to keep this vampire from honoring her agreement with the dark force that owns her soul. Will his unspoken promise be fulfilled at last?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mocha Memoirs Press
• Release date: Mar 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224480463

Book preview

The Promise Keeper

L. Marie Wood

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Rock Hill, SC

Copyright Notice

The story contained herein is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-962353-06-9

The Promise Keeper © 2003, L. Marie Wood

The Devil’s Due © 2003, Elle Wood

Cover Art by RockingBookCovers.com, Adrijus

Original Editors: Laura Fasching and Michael Wood

Proofreader: Nicole Givens Kurtz

Publisher: Mocha Memoirs Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws you cannot trade, sell or give any e-books away.

Other L. Marie Wood Titles

The Realm Trilogy

The Realm

Cacophony-The Realm, Book 2

Accursed-The Realm, Book 3

Other Titles

12 Hours

Telecommuting

The Black Hole

The Open Book

Tales of Time

Crescendo

About Horror: The Study and Craft

Acknowledgements

I want to thank Laura Fasching, Chuck Jenkins and Jasmine Torres for letting me bounce ideas around. Thanks to Cyriaque Kotomale and Maurille DeSouza at the Benin Embassy and Chris Starace for providing Fon translations. Chris’s informative website started my interest in Fon. If you are interested in the language, visit www.geocities.com/fon_is_fun/. Thanks also to Laura Fasching and Michael Wood—my reading committee—for hitting my odd timelines.

Special thanks to Michael Wood for putting up with my late nights and long hours. Your support is invaluable.

For Michael

Of life I know nothing. Of death I am sure.

P

rologue

The smell of blood wafting up to her nose was exquisite. It penetrated the musty air with its pungency. The aroma was all encompassing, full-bodied and complete in a way that nothing else was. The earthy, metallic smell of it was electric, invigorating; the touch of it was like satin against her skin. She loved it – everything about it. The look, the feel, the smell, the taste. She breathed deeply of it as it flowed from his body in a crimson deluge, allowing the scent to tantalize her nostrils and mix with the stagnant air in her lungs. She dipped her hands in it and collected some to rub on her face and neck, her forearms and calves, covering herself with its warmth. She even touched herself with the blood on her hands, sharing it with her most intimate place. She knew it wasn’t normal, that what she was doing wasn’t right, but that didn’t matter to her then. The concept of right and wrong hadn’t mattered to her in a long time.

She looked at him again, at the man who had given her immortality through his seed, the man who had given his blood to her. He was young, only 22 years old, with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen—a rich hazelnut brown with emerald flecks in them that sparkled like jewels. The man she had loved lay before her on bloody sheets. He was handsome, virile, and dead.

In the moonlight, his body was flawless, shadowed here and there where his muscles rounded, where his curves crested. It was tight, firm. She had the chance to experience the pleasures his body could give many times before that day. Before his last day. She had, in fact, sampled him one last time before taking his life. His face was masculine, sporting high cheekbones and full lips. His shoulders were broad, his chest wide, supporting a strong, shapely neck. His waist was slender and his stomach was flat, rippled with fine-tuned abdominal muscles. His body affected a V shape that was every much as tempting to the touch as it was to the eye. His pubic hair was coarse, more so than the hair on his head. In the past, she had taken pleasure in running her fingers through it as he lay on the bed next to her, spent from effort, with his mind teetering on the edge of sleep. But not that night. To look at him, to touch his skin, to taste of the perspiration coating his body after he made love to her, had been a fantasy, until the day she realized she had looked too long.

At 6’3", he was well proportioned, sleek. His legs were firm, muscular, and shapely. She couldn’t help but stare at them, blood splattered and rigid, as they went up, up, up, coming together behind the round of his testicles. She raised a bloody finger to her lips and tasted what was left of him. His blood had begun to cool on her hands and the texture was thick like the skin over lukewarm gravy. She rolled her tongue to the roof of her mouth, pressing the blood there, savoring it like fine wine. Then she let her saliva carry it down her throat, deep inside of her. Her heart throbbed at the taste of him, at the thought of him coursing through her body, becoming part of her. It never ceased to surprise her, the way her body reacted to the taste of human blood. The mere sight of it sparked arousal, the sight of it made her come close to losing control. Even in the early days, when the taste of blood was akin to drinking poison in her mind, her body acted out of some primal lust for it, some unquenchable desire.

For many years she tried to suppress it. She used to force herself away from its luring aroma, choosing starvation instead. But that was short lived. Now, instead of fighting the feeling, the desire, the need, she allowed the pleasure to take over, to wash her in warmth that penetrated her mind, body, and soul, if, in fact, she still had one. Her desire for blood was unstoppable, insatiable. She was powerless against it. But none of the warmth that usually came when she drank of it, filled her that day. Not when she allowed herself to look into the eyes of the man who lay slaughtered in his bed, the man who she loved as she had no other.

Jonathan.

Why did it have to be this way? She thought bitterly, her body and mind suffering more than they had in years. She had promised herself she would never use him the way she used the others: For food. For blood. She stayed away from him during the times when her hunger was so great, she couldn’t be trusted to be rational. She hid the truth of what she had called life for more years than she cared to remember, had been so careful not to include him in that aspect of her existence, as difficult as it had been.

So why, then?

Why was she forced to murder the only man she had ever loved?

The answer was as clear to her then as it had been when they started, when she knew the risks of falling in love. She just didn’t want to face it.

He had come to her in a dream, as he was fond of doing. Before she drifted to sleep, lying in the arms of her beloved, she knew he was near. She was used to him being around, milling, watching, waiting. She was able to ignore him most times; her only acknowledgement of his presence was the glance she cast reflecting her anger, anger she had harbored since the day he made her what she was. Her anger had never ceased, had never lessened nor dimmed. It was always forefront in her mind, making her bitter and ruthless to her victims. She showed no mercy when she took them. In fact, she took pleasure in watching them squirm within her grasp, like bugs caught in a spider’s web. She liked to hear them whimper their pleas. How she enjoyed the sound of their tortured voices, the look of death in their eyes. It was an inherent pleasure, one that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her, a dark room locked away in the caverns of her mind. It frightened her, the depths of her sadism. Maybe, she sometimes thought, she would have been damned in life as she was in death.

On this night she had been falling into a blissful sleep following a most satisfying evening with Jonathan. As she drifted off, she fancied she could still feel his touch on her skin, warm and firm, as it had been when he grabbed her buttocks and pulled her closer with every thrust. He had commanded her body that night, putting her in the positions of his liking, slapping her upturned bottom until blush sprang upon her skin, licking, sucking, biting her anywhere and everywhere until he was satisfied. Then he lay still beside her, his pants of pleasure evening out to regular drawn breaths, his body settling in for the night.

She laid awake until the sweat that had coated his body dried into his brown skin and his breathing became deep and steady. Those were the times she adored, those minutes between being awake and falling to sleep. When life seemed like a dream, airily light, when the surreal haze of uncertainty hovers over what can be seen and touched. That was when she felt most like a woman, a living being, like she had been so many years before.

Letting the sound of Jonathan’s breathing lull her to sleep, she drifted to a place where she was the girl, she remembered herself to be long ago. She walked aimlessly in the tall grass as she once had, her bare feet sinking into the cool dirt under the shade of the mango trees that rimmed the pathway. In her in-between state, she could almost smell the air, sweet from ripening fruit on the vine, crisp and fresh in the light of the morning sun. The sensations were breathtaking. And painful. Her memory had become so sharp, so photogenic, that the images

she called up were more than just vague memories of times past. Instead, they were tangible and meaty; she felt like she was reliving them when they pressed into her consciousness, hearing every sound, feeling every touch. Her memories tortured her with their palpability, smothered her in their truth. She would never again feel the warmth of her mother’s embrace, would never feel the coolness of the stream that ran nearby the house she shared with her family coursing over her toes. She understood that. But her memory gave those things back to her to experience all over again. The sensations tore at her like a knife in her heart.

She drifted away into a sleep that was surface and light, yet all consuming. In the distance she heard a sound. A whisper that sounded distorted and far away, as though coming from another apartment. The sound was so faint, she wondered if she heard anything at all.

Keep your promise.

The voice didn’t stir her, didn’t make her open her eyes to see who was speaking. Some part of her mind knew to whom the voice belonged. It screamed for her to wake up, telling her that he was there, in the room with them—in the room with Jonathan—but she didn’t listen to it. The part of her mind that had enfolded itself in the warmth of Jonathan’s body, into the life of a living mortal woman, turned a deaf ear to the intrusive warning, to the intruder itself.

But still she heard him whisper softly, like a parent to a napping child.

Keep your promise.

If Jonathan heard the words, he didn’t show it. His body lay next to hers, deep in sleep and seemingly unaware of the presence. The part of her mind that heard the voice, deep in the recesses of her psyche, thought it was just as well Jonathan slept. It was better that he sleep, keeping his eyes shut, and his mind oblivious to the horror he was about to face than to wake to witness his mortality.

She kept dreaming, ignoring the hollow warning to wake up that sounded in the folds of mind. Her mind fed her associations, both physical and mental. It showed her the sun and she felt its warmth on her skin. It sent a breeze to flow through her hair and her skin sprung goose bumps in kind. It was starting again and she was helpless to prevent it. This was her memory at play and it was always the same. She shifted in bed as her body twirled in the land of the past, dirt moving under her feet, leaves rattling in the wind. She filled her lungs with the sweet scent of the air, breathing of it in deep gulps, enjoying the memory for what it was worth; living life again as she had many lifetimes ago.

The trees moved In the wind, whistling their song as each leaf rose and fell, undulating at the whim of the wind. She kept spinning, her eyes shut in the world of her dreams, preferring to feel rather than see, for she knew what lay in the distance. She knew he was there as he always was. Waiting.

He stood beside a gnarled tree, misplaced among the luscious limbs of the mango trees that surrounded it. She stopped spinning and dropped her hands to her sides as she had when they first met. She opened her eyes to the bright summer day and saw him looking at her with eyes that had seen the four corners of the earth in a casual blink, with eyes that told everything yet revealed nothing. She didn’t feel fear, didn’t feel the shyness that she might have felt had a boy from her village crept upon her and stared while she twirled unaware, caught up in the beauty of the day. Instead, she felt comfortable, relaxed. As he approached her, she regarded him with soft eyes, the way a lover would regard her mate as he returned to their bed. She didn’t see the evil etched upon his face, the malice that twisted his mouth, the triumphant glee that danced in his eyes. She saw only him to whom she had given herself. To whom she would soon belong.

Her mind begged her to wake up, to spare her the memory masked in a dream, but she didn’t stir. Part of her enjoyed the memories as much as she hated them, returning to a time when nothing mattered except the love of a mysterious stranger. The innocence, the inhibition she felt then; she cherished the memory of those feelings as much as she did those of her family. That was something she would never admit aloud. Not to anyone.

He approached her, his face a cloud of mystery, the way It Is was In her memory. She held her ground as he drew closer. The voice inside that told her to run away. It was wrestled into submission by the part of her that embraced the fantasy.

She stood silent, waiting for him to speak.

My dear Zaji, at last.

He spoke in a voice that was a thousand voices, in tongues that caressed many languages. To some he might have spoken the purest of French, to others Mandarin, but to her he spoke the language of her people in a velvet voice, rolling the words in his mouth, savoring them the way one might a delicacy. He hypnotized her with every inflection, every word.

He came to her as he always did when this memory resurfaced, the memory itself was a primer for him, the main attraction. He appeared as he had when they met in the grove that would witness her metamorphosis. Running the softest of hands along her cheek, he touched her, caressing her skin as if it were pure silk. He spoke in hushed tones, keeping his words between them, burning them into her heart, her very soul. His touch, the feeling of air swirling about them, the surreal texture of the world, seemed as it had then, identical to the day her life changed. But his words were different. She strained to hear him, to truly hear the words he spoke and break through the sensually hypnotic melody his voice carried. His smooth tenor filled her, strummed her senses, making her melt in his arms. She fought against it, somehow knowing they had transitioned from a memory that replayed itself over and over, torturing her with each beginning, to a new environment, one not quite a dream, but far from waking lucidity. Through the veil of her own desires, she saw him smiling coyly, using his lips and eyes to seduce her, knowing the things she liked, what she found hard to resist. The part of her that wanted to succumb lurched toward him, pressing her body closer to his. How he toyed with her, making her want him with only a look.

She shut her eyes to break his spell, cutting off their connection so she could regain her composure. In the recesses of her mind, she heard a voice call to her. The voice was light and airy, juvenile in its innocence, pure in its timbre. It was the voice she possessed years before, when she was still a girl of the world and not the monster she had become.

Yéyé. One word was all the little voice that flitted around inside her head uttered, but it cleared the fog surrounding her consciousness. The voice was urgent, firm, solid in the midst of the surrealism of her dream. She knew then what he was planning to do. She knew then, for the first time, that she would never let it happen, no matter what the consequences were.

Baby.

She awoke with a knowledge that both empowered and devastated her. She stared at the space in front of the bed she and Jonathan shared, at the place where he would surely show himself, and cried tears full of sorrow and anguish. She turned to look at Jonathan once more before allowing herself to step into the reality that would change her life, and instantly wished she hadn’t. In age he was no more than a boy, but in spirit, he was a wise elder. His face, so peaceful in sleep, would soon be no more than a memory. She would never see Jonathan smile again, feel his touch, or taste his kisses. Her mourning of him would be lifelong, eternal.

Zaji. The name given to her at birth by her mother. The name whose meaning she would never be able to realize. Womanhood in the truest sense—physical and mental maturity combined—she would never see in her mortal life. She chuckled at the sentiment as she rose from the bed, preparing for the work ahead. That she had died a child seemed like a cruel joke to a body that felt aged and worn.

Zaji. The name echoed in her head; spoken by a voice she couldn’t place. She hadn’t used that name since she took the great sleep in her homeland. The night she died, she returned to her grave after a visit to a place she would never again call home. She made herself lay inert for decades, trying to still her heart and stop her breathing. But still she rose, weak and weary from lack of sustenance after years of hiding, years of denying her nature, such as it had become.

But not dead, no.

On the contrary, she was very much alive. Her senses were heightened; even the minutest of sounds rang in her ears. The cool air that met her when she arose from her grave felt harsh against her skin, like needles penetrating flesh that had been rubbed raw. She inhaled and the air seemed to burn the delicate lining of her nostrils. Her discomfort was insufferable, yet she had never felt so full of life. She felt so alert, so vibrant, so consumed with hunger. It was then, when her hunger could no longer be contained, she took her first prey: A pretty girl whose beautiful upturned eyes and trusting smile would never escape Zaji’s memory. She knew, as she drank ravenously the blood of an innocent, its metallic tang like sweet nectar caressing her tongue and throat, she was no longer Zaji, the oldest daughter of Hiji and Mariama of Dahomey.

Nothing about her present state resembled the person she had been in the past.

Before.

She was forever changed. Tainted. Holding on to that girl, the sweet Zaji who thrived on life and the quest for knowledge, would be impious. Zaji was dead. So, she let her go and became someone else. She became Angelique.

The name served her well through the centuries, proving to be as versatile as it was timeless. In recent years she’d opted for the shorter Angie, loosening it up, making it blend in more with the casual nature of the times. She had learned to be a chameleon over the years, changing as the situation dictated, fading into the shadows when necessary. She rarely formed ties with people because she didn’t want to let anyone get close. She couldn’t. Only those whose deaths were written on the wall knew her true being.

Except Jonathan.

He had known her heart if no other part of her. The Angie he knew was pure to him, she was everything Zaji had not been allowed to become: A sexual being, a compassionate, worldly woman with needs and desires that stretched beyond those of the flesh. She felt free with Jonathan. Free to love, free to live, free to be real. She hid the truth from him to protect him, not to deceive or lull him into a sense of security and take his life when the time suited her. She genuinely loved him as she had loved no other. Spilling his blood would be the hardest thing Angie would ever have to do.

Angie laid garbage bags along the floor before she killed him. They were cut open